


An Outing of Weevils

by Holde_Maid



Category: Highlander: The Series, Torchwood
Genre: Animal Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7071013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Holde_Maid/pseuds/Holde_Maid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra meets Jack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Outing of Weevils

**Author's Note:**

> Neither series is mine, nor are any of the characters. No infringement or harm intended, no money made.

Cassandra knew magic. She knew it so intimately that she did not feel its presence, but rather its absence. Immortals carried magic. Few of them, however could block it, let alone wield it. Yet to her, Immortals shone with the light of magic. The hue of this light was peculiar, archetypal, and quite bright. It outshone most other kinds of magic.  
So when Cassandra, the Immortal witch, set eyes on Captain Jack Harkness, she was dumbfounded. His smile and his smell as well as his aura all hit her with blinding, binding, exhiliarating force.

Cassandra rarely ever smiled at strangers. There was too much bile in her own soul, and she saw too deeply into theirs. With this particular stranger everything was different: She saw little, and sensed there was far more. She saw pain and felt his warmth. She saw everything, in fact, that she'd have expected to see in the sole survivor of The Gathering - IF the world was lucky. And so she smiled back, puzzled and at a loss.

His smile widened into a broad grin. "Hey, beautiful." American accent, she noted absently. "If I were you, I'd run."  
"From you or from the walking animals behind you?" she nodded at the creatures that were still some 200 yards away.  
He jerked his thumb at the creatures. "Them. They're hungry. And they don't stop from eating human."  
"Are they yours?"  
He laughed. Even his laugh was larger than life. "Ah, no! I'm a guy that thinks they shouldn't be here."  
"And yet you do not want to kill them if you can help it."  
He eyed her curiously. "You're a strange one."  
For the second time she was tempted to smile. This time she didn't. "And you are one to talk!"  
He laughed again. He sobered quickly. "The time to run would be NOW."  
"You don't know how to talk to them. I do. Trust me." She allowed him to see the flicker, the moment when an image blended over her true form.  
He took a step back, and she could see a quick flash of panic, but it was gone in a moment. He stood his ground and waited, watching her. 

Low grunts became audible. Cassandra stepped towards the stranger slowly, put a hand on his muscular chest, and shoved him to the side of the road. She needed to see the animals to work her magic. Their aura was that of a candle recently snuffed out. Their smell was more reminiscent of a bog that held half-decayed animals in its deadly claws. Their bodies were muscular, tightly knit. Cassandra spoke to them in their own primal language of grunts and moans. Then she turned and led them away. Away from the man. Away from all the humans they might want to feed on. 

She found, however, that the man with the blinding aura merely got into a car and followed the pack as she led it to an egg farm. The hens would panick, but this comparatively quick death was more merciful than the life they led here. The many individuals suffering had been weighing on her, had constantly grated on the fringes of her subconscious. It had guided her here more surely than any technical gimmick ever could have. The facility wasn't the only one around Cardiff, but it was the worst.

Cassandra left it to the two-legged predators to force open the gate, she did protect the single security guard, though. After making sure that there was no other mortal here she went to the car, waited for the window to roll down and said in her own voice, "The guard could use an escape route."  
The car took off at top speed. About two minutes later it caught up with her again. By now she had shed the illusion and looked her usual self again. "Can I take you home?" The broad grin was suggestive.

Cassandra might have told him why right now she just wanted to be alone. Perhaps he could have understood, at least marginally... But he was not the only one in the car. From inside the big vehicle, there were several pale faces looking at her with undisguised curiosity. So she just said, "I don't like cars. Thank you for the offer."  
One of the faces now piped up with caring in her voice, "Look, you've seen the Weevils - they really are dangerous! Love, let us take you home." That rang of a Cardiff native.  
"You know what, I'll walk with you. How does that sound?" Without waiting for an answer the man with the lighthouse-aura jumped out of the SUV. His co-driver smoothly slipped over, took the wheel and drove off.  
"You understand I need no protection?"  
"Maybe not from the Weevils." He drew his greatcoat closer around his neck. "Where are you from?"  
She could have been as unforthcoming as usual. Something about him made her make an exception. "Between us elders, I don't know. I was a foundling."  
"Us elders?"  
"Your soul is far deeper than that of a thirty-something. I recognise longevity when I see it."  
"You do, huh?" He laughed. "So that's why you didn't want my company?"  
"No. It's just hard to concentrate while these... Weevils? While they are still feeding."  
"Yeah?"  
"The killing is still going on. It has slowed down, though."  
He nodded, then his face tilted and gained a sceptical expression. "What are you?"  
"A witch," she replied simply. "I am attuned to the animal world."  
"And you can talk to Weevils." He seemed to be working out options.  
Quickly she interjected, "They do not talk, as such. They communicate. It is not... It's not like saying 'I'll show you a place where you can feed. It's in the suburbs.' It's more like 'Food. Come.' - Except it is not as simple as that sounds." She stopped herself.  
"Go on, that's fascinating," he encouraged.  
"They are able to consciously release a number of smells - not like pheromones, they are more like a sentence each to them. 'We are friends' is one smell, and 'I'm protecting you' is another. And they all smell like a different kind of overdue stinky cheese..."  
"Can you...?" he started.  
"No. I can give them an illusion of those smells, though."

"Where are my manners?!" He suddenly laughed and held out his hand. "Captain Jack Harkness."  
"Cassandra." She had expected his handshake to be painful in one way or another, but neither did he grip too hard nor was there a clash of magic. She relaxed and allowed him to draw her hand through the hook his welcoming elbow formed. The gesture was outdated, but somehow fitting. Maybe it was because of his coat - its style was outdated in the same way. They walked side by side in silence for a few paces. "Listen," he said at last, "why do I get that feeling that you wouldn't join my team?"  
"Because it is true."  
"Fine." He turned to stand in front of her, and the sense of his virility slammed into her distractingly. "Why?"  
"I am independent. I have my own agenda. I accept no superior but Mother Nature," she named three random reasons. There were more, of course.  
"Can I ask for your help from time to time? Like ... a freelancer?"  
"You can ask if you do not expect a yes." She looked away. "And I may not always be there."  
"Neither may I." His voice had a huskier, darker timbre now. He turned and started to walk on slowly. "I try not to think about it."  
"Don't worry," Cassandra told him with a sigh of relief. The hens' death-pain had subsided. There still was fear in the air, so perhaps they were taking some hens home for later. But the Weevils' hot, boiling hunger that she had sensed, was gone. "The magic that keeps you alive is still strong within you. It does not age or wither."  
"Magic?" he laughed and stopped until she had caught up with him. "You know, I've never thought of it in those terms."  
Cassandra shrugged, and they walked on in silence. They were nearing the park where they had first met. It was still fairly far from Cardiff's center. His arm slipped around her shoulder. It felt good. The warmth oozing from his heart felt good.  
"Where are we going?" he finally asked.  
"I don't know," the Immortal retorted. "Your place or mine?"  
She liked how his laugh was larger than life.


End file.
